Valery Yakovlevich Tarsis ( uk, Валерій Яковлевич Тарсіс, russian: Вале́рий Я́ковлевич Та́рсис; ,
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
– 3 March 1983,
Bern
german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese
, neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen
, website ...
) was a
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
writer, literary critic, and translator. He was highly critical of the
communist regime.
Biography
Valery was born in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
in 1906 and graduated from the
Rostov-on-Don State University in 1929.
He translated thirty four books into Russian.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Tarsis was twice severely wounded.
As a young man Tarsis joined the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
but became disillusioned in the 1930s and finally broke with the party in 1960.
[ In 1966, he said his key purpose in writing "is to struggle against Communism."] He smuggled his compositions out of Russia so that they could escape Soviet censorship
Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.
Censorship was performed in two main directions:
* State secrets were handled by the General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press (also known as Glavli ...
.
The publication abroad of his scathing 1962 novel ''The Bluebottle'' earned him an eight-month stay in a Soviet mental hospital, an experience he described in his autobiographical novel ''Ward 7'': "All around him were faces exposed by sleep or distorted by nightmares ... it is always hard to be the only one awake, and it is almost unbearable to stand the third watch of the world in a madhouse..."
Tarsis' ''Ward No. 7'' is a personal account of the use of psychiatry to stifle dissidence. The book was one of the first literary works to deal with political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Tarsis based the book upon his own experiences in 1963–1964 when he was detained in the Moscow Kashchenko psychiatric hospital for political reasons. In a parallel with the story ''Ward No. 6'' by Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
, Tarsis implies that it is the doctors who are mad, whereas the patients are completely sane, although unsuited to a life of slavery. In ward No. 7 individuals are not cured, but persistently maimed; the hospital is a jail and the doctors are gaolers and police spies. Most doctors know nothing about psychiatry, but make diagnoses arbitrarily and give all patients the same medication — the anti-psychotic drug aminozin or an algogenic injection. Tarsis denounces Soviet psychiatry as pseudo-science and charlatanism.
Among all the victims of Soviet psychiatry, Tarsis was the sole exception in the sense that he did not emphasised the 'injustice' of confining 'sane dissidents' to psychiatric hospitals and did not thereby imply that the psychiatric confinement of 'insane patients' was proper and just.
In 1966, Tarsis was permitted to emigrate to the West, and was soon deprived of his Soviet citizenship. He lectured at the Leicester University and Gettysburg College.[ In his words, he had invitations to lecture at the Sorbonne and at universities of ]Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
and Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
. The KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
had plans to compromise the literary career of Tarsis abroad through labelling him as a mentally ill person. As the 1966 memorandum to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union reported, "KGB continues arrangements for further compromising Tarsis abroad as a mentally ill person." He settled in Bern, Switzerland where he died after a heart attack on 3 March 1983 at the age of 76.
Works
*''The Bluebottle'' (1962)
*''Ward 7'' (1965)
*''The Pleasure Factory'' (1967)
*''The Gay life'' (1968)
Further reading
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarsis, Valery
1906 births
1983 deaths
Ukrainian people of World War II
Writers from Kyiv
Soviet novelists
Soviet male writers
20th-century Russian male writers
Ukrainian writers in Russian
20th-century Russian writers
Soviet translators
Ukrainian translators
20th-century translators
Italian–Russian translators
French–Russian translators
Soviet dissidents
Ukrainian dissidents
Ukrainian anti-communists
Resigned Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Soviet psychiatric abuse whistleblowers
Psychiatric survivor activists
Soviet expellees
People denaturalized by the Soviet Union
Soviet emigrants to Switzerland